GMOs

[Dave]

GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms)

Over the past few years I have had many conversations with you guys about GMO foods. The overwhelming consensus from all of you is that GMO foods are bad, potentially unhealthy, and responsible for enlarged organs and tumors.

To which – I agree with all of your attitudes and perceptions

But – I wish to explore just which conspiracy theory is most accurate – and if – there is even a conspiracy at play

What is a GMO – ‘… Genetically modified crops (GM crops, or biotech crops) are plants used in agriculture, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic engineering techniques. In most cases the aim is to introduce a new trait to the plant which does not occur naturally in the species…”

“… Examples in food crops include resistance to certain pests, diseases, or environmental conditions, reduction of spoilage, or resistance to chemical treatments (e.g. resistance to a herbicide), or improving the nutrient profile of the crop…”

“… Farmers have widely adopted GM technology. Between 1996 and 2013, the total surface area of land cultivated with GM crops increased by a factor of 100, from 17,000 square kilometers (4,200,000 acres) to 1,750,000 km2 (432 million acres).[66] 10% of the world's croplands were planted with GM crops in 2010.[67] In the US, by 2014, 94% of the planted area of soybeans, 96% of cotton and 93% of corn were genetically modified varieties.[68] In recent years GM crops expanded rapidly in developing countries. In 2013 approximately 18 million farmers grew 54% of worldwide GM crops in developing countries.[66]…”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_organism)

Conspiracy Theories – “… There are various conspiracy theories related to the production and sale of genetically modified crops and genetically modified food that have been identified by some commentators such as Michael Shermer. Generally, these conspiracy theories posit that GMOs are being knowingly and maliciously introduced into the food supply either as a means to unduly enrich agribusinesses or as a means to poison or pacify the population. …

Additionally, a Latvian study showed that a segment of the population believed that GMOs were part of a greater conspiracy theory to poison the population of the country.[112] …

… A work seeking to explore risk perception over GMOs in Turkey identified a belief among the conservative political and religious figures who were opposed to GMOs that GMOs were "a conspiracy by Jewish Multinational Companies and Israel for world domination."…” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetically_modified_food_controversies)

Before – you read my comments please take a minute to read the following article

U.N. says world faces largest humanitarian crisis since 1945
www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/11/world/u-n-says-world-faces-largest-humanitarian-crisis-since-1945/#.WMQwwWdlDdc

Most of my audience lives in America. Most of my audience has never known hunger. Most of my audience is intelligent enough to recognize the (potential) problems with GMO foods – however – because of our own indoctrination into the anti-GMO argument most everyone misses the true conspiracy.

Do I believe that corporations are ‘knowingly and maliciously introduced into the food supply either as a means to unduly enrich agribusinesses or as a means to poison or pacify the population. … to poison the population …’ Or ‘for world domination. …’ ---- NO!

Do I believe that GMOs might be potentially unhealthy for humanity – YES I DO

WHY GMOs – For me this answer is very easy – the UN article clearly indicates just how much hunger there is in the world today. Can we here in America easily relate to their plight – NO, because Safeway and WalMart are just down the street, but that doesn’t negate the reality of world hunger. And why can’t we relate to their hunger, because we have all been eating GMO food from Safeway and WalMart.

When I was born, the tallest corn around was only 6’ tall and it had at most 4 ears of corn on it. Today corn grows twice as tall and some species have as many as 12 ears of corn.

Here is some data from - agebb.missouri.edu/commag/crops/audit/corn.htm#facts



Corn production in 1950 = 38.2 bushel/acre
Corn production in 2011 = 147.2 bushel/acre

Wheat production in 1950 = 16.5 bushel/acre
Wheat production in 2010 = 46.3 bushel/acre

Why have Farmers embraced GMO crops – easy answer – bigger yields
Even considering all the money that have to invest in GMO seeds, herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers – not to mention all the oil required to operate farming equipment – the NET profit to the farmer is greater

This is the only organized human conspiracy – profit - a means to unduly enrich agribusinesses

Are there legitimate questions about the health consequences of GMO foods – YES
However, without the use of GMO foods many of us would have been hungry a long time ago.

Adam and Eve foraged in the garden, Native American Indians lived off the land, Many Island Nations eat totally from the ocean, the history of farming has always been the small sustenance farmer taking care of his family – this is all good

But one day the world reached the 5 Billion population mark. There is not enough wild lands left to forage in or live off of. The only way for the farmer to remain profitable is to incorporate into larger and larger operations. And now that the world population is pressing 8 billion – the only way those corporate farmers can keep pace with the demand is with the use of GMOs.

Now here we are today – my family is now allowed to eat anything from the Pacific because of Fukushima – it is only a matter of time before it contaminates all the oceans.

There are no more sustenance farmer left – the world has grown into a worldwide supply system that feeds everyone. This system is currently operating at 100% capacity.

Currently we live in a system that is drawn so thin that any disruption and the system might collapse. The projection for our immediate future is for populations to continue to increase – just what impacts will that have on the food supply system?

So what is the true conspiracy?

Gen 1:28 KJV “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Fill the earth with population – subdue the earth – and have dominion over all the creatures – today the population is pushing 8 billion – there is no corner of our globe that is not polluted – and man is the biggest cause of animal species going extinct.

Dan (KJV) “… O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.”

Knowledge shall increase and man shall go to and fro – car, trains, planes, and interstate highway systems – artificial intelligence – anyone want to go to the Moon, or Mars - mapping the human genome and GMOs

Rev 6:6 (NIV) “…"Two pounds of wheat for a day's wages, and six pounds of barley for a day's wages…”

This verse is often explained as - Food shall become so expensive and scarce that we will have to work all day long to afford our supper.

Ezk 5:12 (KJV) “A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine …”
Rev 6:8 (KJV) “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.”

Famine

Here is the true conspiracy set in motion more than 5000 years ago – the correlation between scripture and current events is staggering – I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t see these current trends as scripture coming alive before our very eyes.

[Dillon]

U.N. experts: 100,000 starve while South Sudan government buys weapons

AP, MAR 18, 2017, www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/03/18/world/u-n-experts-100000-starve-south-sudan-government-buys-weapons/#.WM2D9s_DHIU

UNITED NATIONS – South Sudan’s government is spending at least half its budget on security and weapons while 100,000 people are dying of starvation as a result of famine caused mainly by an upsurge in government military operations, U.N. experts said in a new report.

The experts monitoring U.N. sanctions against the world’s newest nation said an additional 1 million people are near starvation and the number of people desperately needing food is expected to rise to 5.5 million “at the height of the lean season in July if nothing is done to curb the severity and breadth of the food crisis.”

[Dave]

Thanks for the post D

Food - it will be the most important commodity of the future

The Pacific is lost as a food source because of Fukashima
The bees are dying - and they are responsible for 1/3 of our food

Scripture says that 1/3 of the world will die from famine - as the population grows and grows - the farm land disappears - the only way agriculture can keep pace with current demand is with the use of GMOs + pesticides + herbicides

The ultimate result is - pollution of the ground water and our water shed + U of Pitt did a study to determine which herbicides or pesticides were killing the bees. Every bee they evaluated carried over 125 different known (potentially poisonous) chemicals on their skin. Many of which are known to science, but there were a few strange chemicals they could explain.

Possibly there isn't ONE dangerous product out there killing our bees - their finding suggest that it is a combination of all these chemicals working together to kill off the bee population.

[Charlene]

I read your posting but don't know that much about the subject to make a comment. I have only heard about in the news. I don't know how we would feed the world with out GMO

[Deleted]

Interesting article, will have to do my research, but have to go to work now

geneticliteracyproject.org/2018/02/19/gmo-corns-yield-human-health-benefits-vindicated-21-years-studies/

This link suggests a fair assessment so far...

Growing GMO corn long term is only going to wreck the health of humans and our soil... ie weed resistance and insect resistance.

Organic soil if rich overcoming long term these problems naturally.

I do not eat corn, anymore, for health reasons. eating BT genes causes your gut to leak, and causes problems to your health.

Shalom

[Dave]

Everything is relevant -

Why GMOs?
For the same reason we have a fiat monetary system

There are too many people on the globe!
Trapped within the current global system, and current agricultural approaches- the population has exceeded the planets "natural' food carrying capacity.

Earth is a limited resource. From space it looks very tiny in comparison. It is a closed ecosystem!

Biology 101 - in any closed ecosystem there are 4 stages of the growth cycle/curve



Lag phase - the organism lives, but life is a struggle against nature for survival. Their is new growth (birth rate), but life spans are short (death rate) and this keeps the total population limited

There was a time when wildlife roamed free and family tribes simply foraged for what ever they needed. Then for centuries man lived with domesticated animals. Even in rural farm lives, agrarian lives, all of the resources were natural and therefore all of the products were bio-degradable.

For Mother Earth - this was an excellent arrangement - Nature remained pure and provided for man.
For man - it wasn't so good - weather change and natural disasters could destroy entire crops and then populations. Disease could wipe out entire populations. War, lawlessness - it was a hard life

The next growth phase is called the logarithmic phase or exponential phase - this is when the organism (man) has learned to master the 'un-natural' (my term) resources.

Coal and oil - un-natural because all of their products are pollutants. But because of them man began to increase upon the planet. Eventually man adds radioactivity to the environment as another pollutant. However, in the mean time humanity has excelled.

I use the example of my parents - born in 1908 and 1912. None of their neighbors has electricity, cars, indoor toilets, or telephones, and coal powered the trains and ships. By the time of their death 1997 and 2007, footprints on the moon were history. People have moved from the farm to the city and basic survival skills become obsolete.



The Stationary Phase is a period of status-quo 1946 - 1986
When I am talk about nuclear energy - this is from Hiroshima to Chernobyl
Amazing this is also exactly the Bretton-Woods Agreement
Therefore this is exactly the USA / Russia Cold War (West vrs East)

Before WWI and WWII - international trade did not exist. European nations had Empires with colonies. Trade between the colonies and home land was conducted by the navy. Trade conflicts were acts of piracy on the open seas.

WWI and WWII (only 18 years) the peak of the logarithmic growth phase of man mechanized warfare to the point it caused a global economic reset

After WWII - Bretton-Woods Agreement
Only one nation still had a standing navy - America
Only one nation had a surviving economy - America
Only one nation had a surviving monetary system - America
The agreement
America would protect free and open shipping for all its allies
Many of our allies never rebuilt their navies
All our allies could export to America to rebuild their economies
and all our allies could us the US Dollar as the base international currency

All our allies had to do is take our side against the Russians in the cold war
The Berlin Wall Fell - The Cold War ended and the world has been running on auto-pilot

But for 70 years the globe has been somewhat peaceful - economies have done well - new personal wealth has also brought new social changes- Broken homes, gays, never married people, women leaving the home and moving into the office, and the expense of raising a child have all contributed to a demographic collapse

The entire reason for NATO was to protect Europe from Russia
There is no longer a need or reason for NATO and the UN is completely useless
America is now an energy exporter - why should we use our navy to keep the oil flowing from the Middle East to China and Japan

The world is returning to nationalism, popular-ism, and instability

Followed by the death phase

Humanities Death Phase is a result of the CATCH 22 of humanities survival

Coal and Oil - are a negative to our environment (coal & oil = bad)
But without them - no gas for the farm tractors that till millions of acres, no oil base herbicides, no oil-based pesticides, no gas for the transport to market, no petrol-based pharmacology that has extended our lives, no electricity to power the cities, and no GMOs

All of these things have allowed man to surpass the natural carrying capacity of the planet - and we are steadily polluting our own nest with the worst type of radioactive shit imaginable.

[Deleted]

An interesting read Dave, and I confess it's really really hard to find Peer Review Objective assessments of GMO research. It's biased, and full of lies. Bad science and down right propaganda.

I used to think GMO was precise gene splitting and inserting known genes into the genome. This is NOT what happens.

What happens is they manufacture billions of plant nuclei and fire the gene into the nuclei with a gene gun, casing billions of DNA damage, and through a process of which survives, they screen which plants to choose, without knowing what internal DNA damage has been caused. It's like butcher science, not genetic science.

When you get BT bacteria gene in your gut, the BT invades your bacteria and your gut cells causing them to make cells rupture, creating leaking membranes which allows foreign food to enter your blood stream causing disease and allergies.

A summary where finding are more likely to be true:-

1. GMOs are unhealthy.
The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) urges doctors to prescribe non-GMO diets for all patients. They cite animal studies showing organ damage, gastrointestinal and immune system disorders, accelerated aging, and infertility. Human studies show how genetically modified (GM) food can leave material behind inside us, possibly causing long-term problems. Genes inserted into GM soy, for example, can transfer into the DNA of bacteria living inside us, and that the toxic insecticide produced by GM corn was found in the blood of pregnant women and their unborn fetuses.

Numerous health problems increased after GMOs were introduced in 1996. The percentage of Americans with three or more chronic illnesses jumped from 7% to 13% in just 9 years; food allergies skyrocketed, and disorders such as autism, reproductive disorders, digestive problems, and others are on the rise. Although there is not sufficient research to confirm that GMOs are a contributing factor, doctors groups such as the AAEM tell us not to wait before we start protecting ourselves, and especially our children who are most at risk.

The American Public Health Association and American Nurses Association are among many medical groups that condemn the use of GM bovine growth hormone, because the milk from treated cows has more of the hormone IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1)―which is linked to cancer.

2. GMOs contaminate―forever.
GMOs cross pollinate and their seeds can travel. It is impossible to fully clean up our contaminated gene pool. Self-propagating GMO pollution will outlast the effects of global warming and nuclear waste. The potential impact is huge, threatening the health of future generations. GMO contamination has also caused economic losses for organic and non-GMO farmers who often struggle to keep their crops pure.

3. GMOs increase herbicide use.
Most GM crops are engineered to be “herbicide tolerant”―they deadly weed killer. Monsanto, for example, sells Roundup Ready crops, designed to survive applications of their Roundup herbicide.

Between 1996 and 2008, US farmers sprayed an extra 383 million pounds of herbicide on GMOs. Overuse of Roundup results in “superweeds,” resistant to the herbicide. This is causing farmers to use even more toxic herbicides every year. Not only does this create environmental harm, GM foods contain higher residues of toxic herbicides. Roundup, for example, is linked with sterility, hormone disruption, birth defects, and cancer.

4. Genetic engineering creates dangerous side effects.
By mixing genes from totally unrelated species, genetic engineering unleashes a host of unpredictable side effects. Moreover, irrespective of the type of genes that are inserted, the very process of creating a GM plant can result in massive collateral damage that produces new toxins, allergens, carcinogens, and nutritional deficiencies.

5. Government oversight is dangerously lax.
Most of the health and environmental risks of GMOs are ignored by governments’ superficial regulations and safety assessments. The reason for this tragedy is largely political. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for example, doesn’t require a single safety study, does not mandate labeling of GMOs, and allows companies to put their GM foods onto the market without even notifying the agency. Their justification was the claim that they had no information showing that GM foods were substantially different. But this was a lie. Secret agency memos made public by a lawsuit show that the overwhelming consensus even among the FDA’s own scientists was that GMOs can create unpredictable, hard-to-detect side effects. They urged long-term safety studies. But the White House had instructed the FDA to promote biotechnology, and the agency official in charge of policy was Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s former attorney, later their vice president. He’s now the US Food Safety Czar.

6. The biotech industry uses “tobacco science” to claim product safety.
Biotech companies like Monsanto told us that Agent Orange, PCBs, and DDT were safe. They are now using the same type of superficial, rigged research to try and convince us that GMOs are safe. Independent scientists, however, have caught the spin-masters red-handed, demonstrating without doubt how industry-funded research is designed to avoid finding problems, and how adverse findings are distorted or denied.

7. Independent research and reporting is attacked and suppressed.
Scientists who discover problems with GMOs have been attacked, gagged, fired, threatened, and denied funding. The journal Nature acknowledged that a “large block of scientists . . . denigrate research by other legitimate scientists in a knee-jerk, partisan, emotional way that is not helpful in advancing knowledge.” Attempts by media to expose problems are also often censored.

8. GMOs harm the environment.
GM crops and their associated herbicides can harm birds, insects, amphibians, marine ecosystems, and soil organisms. They reduce bio-diversity, pollute water resources, and are unsustainable. For example, GM crops are eliminating habitat for monarch butterflies, whose populations are down 50% in the US. Roundup herbicide has been shown to cause birth defects in amphibians, embryonic deaths and endocrine disruptions, and organ damage in animals even at very low doses. GM canola has been found growing wild in North Dakota and California, threatening to pass on its herbicide tolerant genes on to weeds.

9. GMOs do not increase yields, and work against feeding a hungry world.
Whereas sustainable non-GMO agricultural methods used in developing countries have conclusively resulted in yield increases of 79% and higher, GMOs do not, on average, increase yields at all. This was evident in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ 2009 report Failure to Yield―the definitive study to date on GM crops and yield.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) report, authored by more than 400 scientists and backed by 58 governments, stated that GM crop yields were “highly variable” and in some cases, “yields declined.” The report noted, “Assessment of the technology lags behind its development, information is anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty about possible benefits and damage is unavoidable.” They determined that the current GMOs have nothing to offer the goals of reducing hunger and poverty, improving nutrition, health and rural livelihoods, and facilitating social and environmental sustainability.
On the contrary, GMOs divert money and resources that would otherwise be spent on more safe, reliable, and appropriate technologies.

10. By avoiding GMOs, you contribute to the coming tipping point of consumer rejection, forcing them out of our food supply.
Because GMOs give no consumer benefits, if even a small percentage of us start rejecting brands that contain them, GM ingredients will become a marketing liability. Food companies will kick them out. In Europe, for example, the tipping point was achieved in 1999, just after a high profile GMO safety scandal hit the papers and alerted citizens to the potential dangers. In the US, a consumer rebellion against GM bovine growth hormone has also reached a tipping point, kicked the cow drug out of dairy products by Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Dannon, Yoplait, and most of America’s dairies.


As for the 6,000,000,000 people we have , can the world make enough food to feed the vast population? Studies show that the most efficient farmers are the local backyard vegie patch, compared to bio-industrial energy waste consumption of single famers using machines to make food for 50,000 people. A family of four can make enough food in a vegie patch of 16m2 of land. Sure it more convenient to let somebody else do it, while the lazy live in cities, but is this the ideal Bible plant God had for man? No. Man was designed to live in the country in gardens, growing their own food, as Abraham did. As the American Indians once did. High technology is not more efficient, its costly and wasteful of energy.

Today china as tripled it's rice yields by using NPK fertilizers. While this works, is it safe? or healthy long term? Organic matter is slower, but more resilient to disease attack. I read an Ag book (around 1914) in India where labour was cheap and they made tonnes of compost, spread it over the land, food and mouth disease of cattle vanished, as well as crop yields increased heaps. The secret to make richer organic soil. In Jesus time in the parable of wheat, some yielded 30 60 or 100 fold that was sown. That's impossible today. Australia barely got 4 or 6 fold increase in wheat. Why? Our soil is so poor. We have lost something in the last 2000 years.
I think we have lost the living component in our soils. Soil is not a dead medium, but a living one, and its the organic microbes that make soils rich.

When you spray chemicals on soils, what happens to the microbes? They die.

If you gave 8 billion people 16m2 of land, how much of the world is consumed?

You need just 12,800,000 Ha to feed the globe. This land is about 128,000 Km2
or about a country of land 300 Km by 500 Km. What would we do with the rest of the globe? The 99%? Leave it for nature, plant trees, get the living soil back. Dredge the oceans and remove the minerals and put them back. Ban plastic. Use wireless electricity, which is free, no more coal burned. And ban the eating of cattle, saving 30% of methane emissions.

If the organic farmer was encouraged more, they could succeed and produce enough for all. Glyphosate is a global poison, too late to reverse. Causes death to soil minerals for over 25 years and cancer in living systems. Can man engineer anything useful? Compared to God's engineering of DNA health? Man is a pathetic with anything functional.

However this is your forum Dave, and I understand we all have trust in science. I too am live this. As a science person, I too trust science. But GMO is not proper science, at best we are playing foolishly with God's design. GM bamboo for paper and cotton makes sense, but we should leave the food industry alone.

Shalom

[Dave]

Sept 17, 2019 1:15:47 GMT -5 @robertt said:

9. GMOs do not increase yields, and work against feeding a hungry world.
Whereas sustainable non-GMO agricultural methods used in developing countries have conclusively resulted in yield increases of 79% and higher, GMOs do not, on average, increase yields at all. This was evident in the Union of Concerned Scientists’ 2009 report Failure to Yield―the definitive study to date on GM crops and yield.

As for the 6,000,000,000 people we have , can the world make enough food to feed the vast population? Studies show that the most efficient farmers are the local backyard vegie patch, compared to bio-industrial energy waste consumption of single famers using machines to make food for 50,000 people. A family of four can make enough food in a vegie patch of 16m2 of land.

This may be true - it is a really nice idea
but it is propaganda - it is the same propaganda as Global Warming

IF every nation on Earth changed

I qualified my response, by saying - in our current global system.

If everyone had a garden. I live in the High Country of Colorado - if we grow a weed here we call it a flower. I have a 13x33 greenhouse and 9 chickens - you cannot feed a family of four on that! I have tried really hard. The soil here is crap - the climate here is very short.

I could invest in a lot more expensive overhead - even if I did it the Mother Earth way of adding light and warmth -- it would still be cheaper to buy a Tomato from Mexico (under our current global system)

If

[Deleted]

I am hearing you brother, tell me more about your greenhouse, I too am disappointed at the rate of growth from my own soil, it's also crap. Where do you buy organic matter from, without Hg, Cd and Al in it? Why do fertilizers have these metals in them? Can't find an answer? DO they add them deliberately? Thinking of buying grind rock instead and using it as fertilizer.

I used to buy chook manure by the trailer load, can't anymore, manufacturer's have stolen this golden product.

My greenhouse is 12m by 12m, with 3.5 m roof made of fibreglass/plastic sheets to let light and heat in. The walls are shadecloth, making the building insect proof, to cabbage moth and hopefully fruit fly. Inside are two beds for vegies, 2m by 4m, making a total 16m2 for vegie produce. Mostly we grow greens. People in their diet do not eat enough greens. Greens removes cancer and heavy metals from your system, as well as effects of roundup poison. We eat the greens mostly raw over our food. Most of my greens are sourthistle, marrow, ibeaka, and other local weed herbs, as well as spinach, spring onion, garlic, parsley, rocket, mint, beetroot, and so forth. Because we work several hours from home, we travel to a second home for work and come home only on weekends, so I can't spend more time in my garden as I would like.

We have a compost toilet system used to make human compost, as well I mow my lawns to make compost, and used our chooks (30 of them) as well.

Here is an older version, make you chooks inside you garden beds, three yards 6m by 6m, the chook pen has two houses each end to spell chooks from lice. The roof is all chicken wire. Chooks eat, weeds, old crop, and add fertilizer for free.

Here is what the system looked like inside, growing corn. Notice walls were tin, to stop vermin entering.

Here is my first design, using chooks and two pens, one for winter and one for summer, It worked a treat too. All you do is dig and plant. The outer edge was concrete to stop rabbits entering in, and a roof of chicken wire.

And here is my final design, without chooks, behind the compost toilet. I must show you updated progress of this green house one day.

Breakfast at home, the greens as I said, is more important to eat than anything else.

But as for soil: This is a difficult thing, making rich soil, so I too feel for you. I have the same problems myself. Shalom

[Dillon]

Sept 17, 2019 12:55:31 GMT -5 @robertt said:

Notice walls were tin, to stop vermin entering.

What is a vermin in your area? You should see some greenhouses around here after a bear has visited. Where David lives is free range. He could have 200 cows walking over his front door anytime.

[Dave]

Thats not true Dillon - I have only seen 30 or 40 at a time
Since the dogs moved in - it isn't much of an issue any more

Although one day in July, my daughter says to me - 'there is a Lynx in our yard'
I got up and started to tell her that she is propbably mistaken - but there - 20' out our dront door stood a Bobcat as big as the biggest German Shepherd I've ever seen. We lost thre chicken that day.

[Deleted]

Wow both of you have real dangers to your garden...

Vermin to us in Australia would be rats, rabbits, foxes or snakes. Nothing like a bear or bobcat things...

I am feeling for both of you...

[Dave]

That is exactly wy we live here! God's country.

The first time we say a Mountain Lion we were exstatic - we call everyone we knew back in the flat lands of the mid-west. My step daughter wrote us a big letter tell us how crazy we were to live amoungst the wild animals.

Two weeks later a man was shot in the alley 2 blocks away from her dorm room. His hands were tied behind his back and he was in a kneeling position when he was shot in the back of the head.

City animals vrs wild animals - I'll take nature any day!

[Deleted]

City animals vrs wild animals - I'll take nature any day!

Me too. I would rather eat God's food too, than the God Move Over foods (G.M.O.)